I don't have a problem with anything you said. Actually I agree with everything you said. I do have a problem with what you didn't say. That is, how to address the problem of people who pirate digital media that they would have normally purchased.
I don't want to talk about people who wouldn't have purchased the media anyway, because they aren't interesting. Let's talk about people who would normally buy something, but see the option to steal it and take that option. Your books and PDFs example is a perfect one. Let's say I planned on buying a book, and paying $20 for it. This $20 covers the publishing fee as well as the "IP fee", money that goes to the author. However, at the last minute I find out that I can just download the PDF from piratebay and pay nothing. Now the author receives no money for his work which he rightfully deserves.
As I mentioned before, I'm not saying DRM is the solution. I'm really not. I'm just saying that it is still illegal and immoral to steal digital media. The defense, "But it didn't cost them anything!" is false and completely hand-waves the issue. The fact is, you chose not to give money to the author as payment for his work when you should be doing so.
So what about paintings? I bought it (or a copy/print of it, anyway), but I can have multiple people with parallel enjoyment of it (my friends and I can all look at it at the same time). Am I violating the painter's copyright?
You already know that you're ignoring what my words really meant.
Of course it's not violating IP law to have multiple people look at a painting at the same time, just like it's not violating IP law to have multiple people hearing the same copy of a song or reading the same book at the same time. What would be illegal is if you copied the entire painting, and then multiple people were enjoying different instances of the same painting, while only one instance of that painting was paid for.
Of course, as another poster pointed out, these IP laws really DON'T make sense for digital media. However, working under the assumption that we don't have anything better to work with right now, this is the way the law works.
You're absolutely right. I should have prefaced everything I said with, "Understand today's economic model..."
Don't get me wrong, I'm as much against DRM as everyone else on Slashdot, for the exact reasons you're stating: it's trying to stuff a square block into a triangle hole. I just don't know if there are any better models that are ready for prime time use. (Really, I don't know. If there have been any brilliant ideas for revolutionary ways to sell IP, and these ideas have been reviewed, I'd love to hear them)
You're saying then that I can't loan a copy of a book I own to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. That's utter and complete bullshit.
No, he's saying that can't make a complete copy of a book you own and give it to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. And he's right. The difference between loaning a book and "loaning" an MP3 is that once you'd "loaned" your buddy a song, he has complete access to it whenever he wants. More importantly, he has complete parallel access to it with you. Only one instance of the song was paid for, yet two people are able to enjoy its use at any time, perhaps simultaneously.
If I have physical media that I legally purchased, I should be able to loan that media out to whoever the hell I want to, and it's nobody's damned business.
Agreed. If you have an iPod with songs on it that you purchased, you should absolutely be allowed to lend someone that physical media -- that is, the iPod -- and let them use it as long as they want. And you can. You cannot, however, just send them the songs off your iPod, for reasons stated above.
This leads to the question:
"Why is tax law so complicated?"
Shouldn't taxation be a clear, easy to understand affair?
Absolutely not. If people knew how much money they were actually responsible for giving to the the IRS, instead of just paying what they were told to pay, our government would crumble. Income tax is a huge farce, but if a large enough group of people ever call the bluff, our country is going to completely collapse.
Unfortunately, all those deductions you are using are illegal.
Why?
I'm not saying you're wrong, but other comments have indicated that the deductions he is listing are potentially legal. Do you have any evidence to counter his claims?
Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, et al have been making software a lot longer than Google, and have, in my opinion, been doing it a lot better too.
Their products also cost money.
Those "drooling masses of fans" that "nerdgasm" over Google's products are probably willing to accept flaws because the price is significantly lower than the Apple/MS/Adobe equivalent. Infinitely lower, actually.
These are the same type of morons who..
...know their drooling masses of fans will...
<personal opinion>You're an anti-google troll, and so be it. However, please don't go around calling a large group of people "drooling masses" and "morons" because you happen to be a fan of a competing product. It just makes you look like the complete asshole you are.</personal opinion>
You idiot! When converting from numbers to percentages, you have to move the decimal point.
So obviously 2 out of 4 becomes 20%.
When converting from numbers to percentages, you move the decimal point TWO places, not one. 2 out of 4 is 200%.
Who's the idiot now?
On a side note, if you wanted to inverse that relationship (i.e. 4 out of 2), you just invert the percentage, so it's 1/200% = 0.005 =.5%. God I'm good.
I don't deny that plenty of beings besides humans are capable of emotion. Instead, I deny that God is a "being" at all.
I still contend that anything as complicated as a God is far beyond our cognition. We could never even fathom what a God is, what it does, or even the right words to describe what we don't even know about it. It's like trying to envision objects in 4 dimensions; we physically are incapable of doing it. Emotions, bodies, even time and space as we know them... all these terms are far too rudimentary to even scratch the surface of what God is.
That being your argument, I think we basically agree. I believe in a higher power, and our beliefs don't (necessarily) have to be mutually exclusive. (Some religions are inherently exclusive -- such as one whose scripture states that the world is flat, for example -- but the majority of intelligent people don't follow scientifically-disprovable religions).
Stealing a line from Dawkins himself, I believe in the same "God" as Stephen Hawking's God -- that is, not necessarily the same God as the one who anthropomorphically 'wants' me to worship him according to the rules in his book. Rather, I believe there is a vast expanse of stuff we haven't explained yet, and SOMETHING makes all that stuff work. I just don't think that whatever-it-is has human-like desires and 'wants' me to follow arbitrary moral laws (and a host of other silly things).
That is the part where myself (and other atheists) tend to disagree with religion. To us, it's silly that the higher power has human-like emotions. Something as complex as a god would be much, much more complicated and be far beyond emotions. Again, this is probably the point where you and I start to disagree about things -- but there's no reason we have to be angry about that.
I agree that this story is not a good place for this thread, so I'll try to keep my response as short as possible.
Richard Dawkins (a very brilliant person, regardless of his beliefs) has a lot to say on the matter of why science and religion should not (in his opinion) be compatible. He considers himself a "militant atheist", and wishes more atheists would follow in his steps. Whether or not I considered myself an atheist, I would agree that atheists SHOULD listen to what he's saying. It's a very interesting talk, and unfortunately, very hard to watch if you are on the other side of his argument -- i.e. if you're religious. Of course, isn't that always the case? If you're pro-life, for example, isn't it extremely difficult to list to pro-choice arguments?
Anyway, just throwing that out for you to listen to and evaluate. I hope you find it interesting.
I see your point. My assumption was that since JeremyBanks said "they" to mean "Google", that he would also have thought Leptok (the OP) meant "Google".
It was complicated just trying to agree with you. Pronouns are the devil.
[so do they]
relinquish rights to the stuff that may have been created before the update?
No, they said that this change would be applied retroactively.
...right, and since "retroactively" means "Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment", that would make the answer yes, not no. How did this get moderated informative?
The drop-down menu history is VERY useful as a temporary set of bookmarks which you will only need for a short period (say a month) and don't want to litter your real bookmarks with.
Do you often find yourself running into sites that you know you will visit a lot, but only for a short time? I'm not sure I can think of any examples of what you mean.
I'll take a wild stab and assume you're talking about something like an ebay auction that you'll want to check on repeatedly, but only until the auction ends? Ok, fair enough... but that's what the history (Ctrl+H) window is for.
Not to worry. In an original twist he starts out the game with amnesia and slowly discovers as the game progresses that he's the chosen one who must save humanity.
But not before coincidentally running into his dream girl (who has freakishly large breasts), who will at first be cold to him but will warm up to him as they journey together through a series of wackey-but-dangerous adventures. She will ultimately sacrifice herself to save him/someone, which will put the hero in a great position to not only save humanity, but also exact personal vengeance as well (and make it look cool at the same time!).
Assuming he didn't edit it
Isn't that supposed to be, y'know, his job?
Yes and no. His job as an editor of a user-submitted news site is to make sure that stories come out presentable and factually accurate. It is not necessarily the editor's job to edit submissions in a way that changes the information they convey.
In fact, I'm rather glad that he left it alone. Not because I agree with the submission -- I think it was taken out of context as well. However, I'm glad to know that Taco doesn't just spin every submission he gets in a way that makes the news comes out the way he wants it to. It would be so easy to just re-word a couple things here and there, and suddenly the story is in his favorite shade of blue.
Again, Slashdot is a user-submitted news site. Not satisfied with the quality of the news? Submit a better story yourself.
Thank you. I'm so glad that someone knows what I'm talking about. I really thought I was going crazy and forgot how English worked or something. I can sleep again. I owe you a drink.
No, the GP is correct, if they don't care enough to make the demo work right, even if it is after the playable part, why on earth would you trust them to not do a shoddy job with the full product?
No, the GP (my GGP) is not correct, and neither are you. You are both having a problem with the phrase "stage after the demo". That phrase is referring to a point in the full game happening chronologically after the demo. In other words, you play the demo from point A to point B and everything works great. You buy the full game, play from point A to point B, everything works great, and then some time after point B, the game crashes.
The original point of this side-thread was that the demo for a game would run flawlessly, and that the "stage after the demo" would crash. That point is still valid.
You just described RedHat's business model. RedHat has been a very successful distro for about a decade (although they've sunk a bit beneath the radar these last couple years), and all they sell is tech support. Works great for them, too.
Basing your technical decisions on the moral aspects of Reiser's actions is just blatantly stupid. Let's be clear about this: When discussing ReiserFS, it doesn't matter if Reiser was a saint or a clinically insane psychopath. They are two completely unrelated issues.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have a problem with anything you said. Actually I agree with everything you said. I do have a problem with what you didn't say. That is, how to address the problem of people who pirate digital media that they would have normally purchased.
I don't want to talk about people who wouldn't have purchased the media anyway, because they aren't interesting. Let's talk about people who would normally buy something, but see the option to steal it and take that option. Your books and PDFs example is a perfect one. Let's say I planned on buying a book, and paying $20 for it. This $20 covers the publishing fee as well as the "IP fee", money that goes to the author. However, at the last minute I find out that I can just download the PDF from piratebay and pay nothing. Now the author receives no money for his work which he rightfully deserves.
As I mentioned before, I'm not saying DRM is the solution. I'm really not. I'm just saying that it is still illegal and immoral to steal digital media. The defense, "But it didn't cost them anything!" is false and completely hand-waves the issue. The fact is, you chose not to give money to the author as payment for his work when you should be doing so.
So what about paintings? I bought it (or a copy/print of it, anyway), but I can have multiple people with parallel enjoyment of it (my friends and I can all look at it at the same time). Am I violating the painter's copyright?
You already know that you're ignoring what my words really meant.
Of course it's not violating IP law to have multiple people look at a painting at the same time, just like it's not violating IP law to have multiple people hearing the same copy of a song or reading the same book at the same time. What would be illegal is if you copied the entire painting, and then multiple people were enjoying different instances of the same painting, while only one instance of that painting was paid for.
Of course, as another poster pointed out, these IP laws really DON'T make sense for digital media. However, working under the assumption that we don't have anything better to work with right now, this is the way the law works.
You're absolutely right. I should have prefaced everything I said with, "Understand today's economic model..."
Don't get me wrong, I'm as much against DRM as everyone else on Slashdot, for the exact reasons you're stating: it's trying to stuff a square block into a triangle hole. I just don't know if there are any better models that are ready for prime time use. (Really, I don't know. If there have been any brilliant ideas for revolutionary ways to sell IP, and these ideas have been reviewed, I'd love to hear them)
You're saying then that I can't loan a copy of a book I own to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. That's utter and complete bullshit.
No, he's saying that can't make a complete copy of a book you own and give it to a friend or family member because it's copyright infringement. And he's right. The difference between loaning a book and "loaning" an MP3 is that once you'd "loaned" your buddy a song, he has complete access to it whenever he wants. More importantly, he has complete parallel access to it with you. Only one instance of the song was paid for, yet two people are able to enjoy its use at any time, perhaps simultaneously.
If I have physical media that I legally purchased, I should be able to loan that media out to whoever the hell I want to, and it's nobody's damned business.
Agreed. If you have an iPod with songs on it that you purchased, you should absolutely be allowed to lend someone that physical media -- that is, the iPod -- and let them use it as long as they want. And you can. You cannot, however, just send them the songs off your iPod, for reasons stated above.
Mmm...
This leads to the question: "Why is tax law so complicated?"
Shouldn't taxation be a clear, easy to understand affair?
Absolutely not. If people knew how much money they were actually responsible for giving to the the IRS, instead of just paying what they were told to pay, our government would crumble. Income tax is a huge farce, but if a large enough group of people ever call the bluff, our country is going to completely collapse.
Unfortunately, all those deductions you are using are illegal.
Why?
I'm not saying you're wrong, but other comments have indicated that the deductions he is listing are potentially legal. Do you have any evidence to counter his claims?
Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, et al have been making software a lot longer than Google, and have, in my opinion, been doing it a lot better too.
Their products also cost money.
Those "drooling masses of fans" that "nerdgasm" over Google's products are probably willing to accept flaws because the price is significantly lower than the Apple/MS/Adobe equivalent. Infinitely lower, actually.
These are the same type of morons who..
...know their drooling masses of fans will...
<personal opinion>You're an anti-google troll, and so be it. However, please don't go around calling a large group of people "drooling masses" and "morons" because you happen to be a fan of a competing product. It just makes you look like the complete asshole you are.</personal opinion>
Just because YOU didn't get the joke doesn't make it not funny.
If you haven't killed anyone for two full days, you're not a ninja.
Trust this guy. He has a 3-digit UID, meaning he was around before the constitution ever existed. He knows what he's talking about!
You idiot! When converting from numbers to percentages, you have to move the decimal point.
So obviously 2 out of 4 becomes 20%.
When converting from numbers to percentages, you move the decimal point TWO places, not one. 2 out of 4 is 200%.
Who's the idiot now?
On a side note, if you wanted to inverse that relationship (i.e. 4 out of 2), you just invert the percentage, so it's 1/200% = 0.005 = .5%. God I'm good.
Hey! I'm 26 damnit
So you signed up on Slashdot when you were 14?
I don't deny that plenty of beings besides humans are capable of emotion. Instead, I deny that God is a "being" at all.
I still contend that anything as complicated as a God is far beyond our cognition. We could never even fathom what a God is, what it does, or even the right words to describe what we don't even know about it. It's like trying to envision objects in 4 dimensions; we physically are incapable of doing it. Emotions, bodies, even time and space as we know them... all these terms are far too rudimentary to even scratch the surface of what God is.
That being your argument, I think we basically agree. I believe in a higher power, and our beliefs don't (necessarily) have to be mutually exclusive. (Some religions are inherently exclusive -- such as one whose scripture states that the world is flat, for example -- but the majority of intelligent people don't follow scientifically-disprovable religions).
Stealing a line from Dawkins himself, I believe in the same "God" as Stephen Hawking's God -- that is, not necessarily the same God as the one who anthropomorphically 'wants' me to worship him according to the rules in his book. Rather, I believe there is a vast expanse of stuff we haven't explained yet, and SOMETHING makes all that stuff work. I just don't think that whatever-it-is has human-like desires and 'wants' me to follow arbitrary moral laws (and a host of other silly things).
That is the part where myself (and other atheists) tend to disagree with religion. To us, it's silly that the higher power has human-like emotions. Something as complex as a god would be much, much more complicated and be far beyond emotions. Again, this is probably the point where you and I start to disagree about things -- but there's no reason we have to be angry about that.
I agree that this story is not a good place for this thread, so I'll try to keep my response as short as possible.
Richard Dawkins (a very brilliant person, regardless of his beliefs) has a lot to say on the matter of why science and religion should not (in his opinion) be compatible. He considers himself a "militant atheist", and wishes more atheists would follow in his steps. Whether or not I considered myself an atheist, I would agree that atheists SHOULD listen to what he's saying. It's a very interesting talk, and unfortunately, very hard to watch if you are on the other side of his argument -- i.e. if you're religious. Of course, isn't that always the case? If you're pro-life, for example, isn't it extremely difficult to list to pro-choice arguments?
Anyway, just throwing that out for you to listen to and evaluate. I hope you find it interesting.
Cheers,
also-treading-the-karma-death-pit's-edges
I see your point. My assumption was that since JeremyBanks said "they" to mean "Google", that he would also have thought Leptok (the OP) meant "Google".
It was complicated just trying to agree with you. Pronouns are the devil.
[so do they] relinquish rights to the stuff that may have been created before the update?
No, they said that this change would be applied retroactively.
...right, and since "retroactively" means "Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment", that would make the answer yes, not no. How did this get moderated informative?
The drop-down menu history is VERY useful as a temporary set of bookmarks which you will only need for a short period (say a month) and don't want to litter your real bookmarks with.
Do you often find yourself running into sites that you know you will visit a lot, but only for a short time? I'm not sure I can think of any examples of what you mean.
I'll take a wild stab and assume you're talking about something like an ebay auction that you'll want to check on repeatedly, but only until the auction ends? Ok, fair enough... but that's what the history (Ctrl+H) window is for.
Not to worry. In an original twist he starts out the game with amnesia and slowly discovers as the game progresses that he's the chosen one who must save humanity.
But not before coincidentally running into his dream girl (who has freakishly large breasts), who will at first be cold to him but will warm up to him as they journey together through a series of wackey-but-dangerous adventures. She will ultimately sacrifice herself to save him/someone, which will put the hero in a great position to not only save humanity, but also exact personal vengeance as well (and make it look cool at the same time!).
Without having access to a Mac to try your suggestion, can you elaborate on what freaked you out? I'm curious.
Assuming he didn't edit it Isn't that supposed to be, y'know, his job?
Yes and no. His job as an editor of a user-submitted news site is to make sure that stories come out presentable and factually accurate. It is not necessarily the editor's job to edit submissions in a way that changes the information they convey.
In fact, I'm rather glad that he left it alone. Not because I agree with the submission -- I think it was taken out of context as well. However, I'm glad to know that Taco doesn't just spin every submission he gets in a way that makes the news comes out the way he wants it to. It would be so easy to just re-word a couple things here and there, and suddenly the story is in his favorite shade of blue.
Again, Slashdot is a user-submitted news site. Not satisfied with the quality of the news? Submit a better story yourself.
Thank you. I'm so glad that someone knows what I'm talking about. I really thought I was going crazy and forgot how English worked or something. I can sleep again. I owe you a drink.
No, the GP is correct, if they don't care enough to make the demo work right, even if it is after the playable part, why on earth would you trust them to not do a shoddy job with the full product?
No, the GP (my GGP) is not correct, and neither are you. You are both having a problem with the phrase "stage after the demo". That phrase is referring to a point in the full game happening chronologically after the demo. In other words, you play the demo from point A to point B and everything works great. You buy the full game, play from point A to point B, everything works great, and then some time after point B, the game crashes.
The original point of this side-thread was that the demo for a game would run flawlessly, and that the "stage after the demo" would crash. That point is still valid.
You just described RedHat's business model. RedHat has been a very successful distro for about a decade (although they've sunk a bit beneath the radar these last couple years), and all they sell is tech support. Works great for them, too.
Basing your technical decisions on the moral aspects of Reiser's actions is just blatantly stupid. Let's be clear about this: When discussing ReiserFS, it doesn't matter if Reiser was a saint or a clinically insane psychopath. They are two completely unrelated issues.